[R-meta] contour enhanced funnel plots when using function of sample size

[Guido Schwarzer]

Am 24.05.22 um 10:46 schrieb Brendan Hutchinson:

> [...]
> My question is specifically whether there is a means of generating a contour enhanced funnel plot with pseudo confidence regions when using a function of sample size on the y axis. According to the R documentation, this isn't possible. I wanted to ask if anyone knew of any means to achieve this or perhaps a workaround (unless this is some inherent issue to the use of a function of sample size that I'm not seeing).

The sample size does not contain any information on the statistical 
significance of a study result. For example, for a binary outcome:

 > meta::metabin(1, 100, 2, 100)$pval
[1] 0.5688381
 > meta::metabin(25, 100, 50, 100)$pval
[1] 0.0005287824

Both studies have a total sample size of 200, however, depending on the 
number of events, the studies have very different p-values.

The same argument can be made for a continuous outcome, studies with the 
same sample sizes and mean values can have very different standard 
deviations leading to different p-values.

Best,

Guido

-- 
Dr. Guido Schwarzer
Institute of Medical Biometry and Statistics,
Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center - University of Freiburg

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